Field of the Invention
The invention concerns a sensor instrument for generation of electrocardiograms, in particular for cardiac computed tomography.
Description of the Prior Art
Measurement devices or sensor instruments that serve to detect and record the electrical activities of heart muscle fibers of humans or animals are widespread and are used in a variety of fields of application.
For example, relatively simple embodiments are known that are merely designed to determine a heart rate, and used, for example, for monitoring purposes during an athletic activity, and are designed in the manner of a wristwatch or a chest belt, for example.
Measurement devices or sensor instruments that are provided for the medical field are thereby of particular importance. These are often designated as EKG devices and normally have a much higher degree of complexity, which typically also results in a more complicated handling of such a device. However, elaborate and time-intensive handling is undesirable in principle since an efficient workflow in a normal clinical operation is hereby impeded. In contrast to this, in the field of emergency medicine a high time expenditure due to a complicated handling is not only undesirable but can be significantly problematic since, as is known; the time factor plays a decisive role in emergency situations.
In addition, in the medical field there is the problem that measurement devices or sensor instruments are often used simultaneously with different medical apparatuses, such that a high degree of compatibility is required for multiple measurement devices or sensor instruments in the medical field so that the different devices and apparatuses do not mutually interfere. For example, it is known to use an EKG apparatus in order to essentially “trigger” a computed tomography image during cardiac computed tomography. By means of the EKG apparatus, time segments are determined in which the heart of a patient to be examined executes only slight movements or no movements in order to then generate measurement data for a graphical depiction of the heart in precisely these time segments. Since the electromagnetic radiation of the computed tomography apparatus tends to be problematic for electronic components, an EKG apparatus is used that has electronic components accommodated in a housing that can be positioned outside of the radiation region of the computed tomography apparatus, and for example this housing is placed at the foot of the patient bed of the computed tomography apparatus. Only the electrodes of the EKG apparatus, which are usually designed as adhesive electrodes and are attached to the body of the patient in order to establish a galvanically conductive contact, are then located in the radiation region. For the generation of an electrocardiogram, at least two electrodes are thereby necessary that are firmly adhered to the body of the patient independently of one another (thus with a spatial separation from one another) and are connected by wires. In practice, metallic elements that interfere with the computed tomography image data generation and often cause image artifacts are often located at the electrodes themselves, such interference is, however, generally accepted.